


signs of a lifetime

by atlantisairlock



Category: This Way Up (TV)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, F/F, First Kiss, Happy Ending, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: Charlotte and Shona's developing relationship through the course of the first season, from Charlotte's perspective.
Relationships: Charlotte/Shona (This Way Up)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	signs of a lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newyorksnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorksnow/gifts), [makemefeelsomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemefeelsomething/gifts).



> it's like midnight rn and i'm a little delirious and i really have just got to say that if they aren't endgame in the second season i will honestly just die. aisling bea do this for me okay ty ily. 
> 
> title from 'don't delete the kisses' by wolf alice.

To be clear - you’ve never believed in the ridiculous rom-com notion that is ‘love at first sight’. There’s no such thing. Love is a choice, a commitment, something built and carefully maintained and fought for. It doesn’t happen with a single glance or brush-pass on the street, or eyes meeting across the room, and it certainly doesn’t happen with you standing outside a building on a cold evening smoking a cigarette and calling out a name. That’s not the moment you fall in love - that’s not the moment that everything really changes for you.

But it is the moment that begins something new, and you never forget that it starts with you saying her name.

Shona’s your friend first, and also all you expect her to be. You’re climbing the ladder at work, you’ve got a cat that demands constant attention, you see your therapist every Saturday, and not to mention it’s been a year since you broke it off with Helen and you’re doing pretty well for yourself. You’re content. You’re not looking for anything more. Befriending someone else in the monolith that is the company who isn’t a typical Oxbridge economics-finance alpha male arsehole is already a gift from the heavens. Sure, she’s not the only other woman on the payroll, but she’s one of the first who’s really sat down with you, talked to you like a human being, and bothered to listen to what you have to say in return. It’s nice, and it’s even better when she keeps to her promise of staying in touch and calls you up with a proposal, a pitch.

 _Set it up with me,_ she says at the bar, looking earnest, driven. _I just feel like I want to do something good._

Shona talks with her hands - talks with her entire body, actually, wears things on her sleeve, written clearly on her face. Even this early on in your friendship, you don’t feel like you need to search or pry with her. She gives things away, and you find yourself wanting to take what’s offered. You like the sound of what she’s suggesting - it’s something you believe in too, and you think it could be good for you. Working to create something bigger than yourself, for the benefit of people like both of you. Even before Shona puts your conversation on hold to pick up Aine’s call, you already know you’re going to say yes.

 _That,_ maybe, is the moment you fall in love. You’re never really sure, and when Shona gets off the phone and you make the snap decision to get on board, the conversation shifts pretty quickly to excited discussion about plans and structures with tequila and sambuca in front of you so that takes up most of your focus. But the thought does flicker across your mind, unbidden - how beautiful she is, how smart, how happy you are that you’ve met somebody like her. Something that burrows its way into your heart. Something that doesn’t leave.

You meet up often after that - sometimes during lunch, if your breaks coincide; frequently for dinner at whichever restaurant near the office catches your fancy. Shona never seems to run out of energy, ideas or drive. She talks animatedly about how she imagines the logistics of the networking event, the long-term sustainability, her hopes for it far into the future. Her eyes shine when she talks about it and you can’t help but get caught up in dreaming about its success as well. Shona’s enthusiasm is infectious and it’s impossible not to admire her determination. It’s evident she’s been thinking about the idea for a long time. It takes shape in your mind when she paints it with her words - it’s almost _easy_ to start sketching out more concrete plans to make the concepts Shona talks about a reality.

You throw yourself into the project - it challenges you in the best ways, sometimes even moreso than your actual job. It helps that before long, your meetings with Shona aren’t just limited to drawing up plans and figuring out the nitty-gritty details of event organisation. You talk about current affairs, she bitches about whatever idiot thing someone or another said in a meeting the day before, and soon you become comfortable calling her your friend. Not just an acquaintance or a colleague, but someone with whom you can drink wine, gossip, laugh… someone in whom you can confide. You trust her. It’s why you tell her about your therapist, about your own struggles with your mental health - especially because you can see her trying to find her words. Shona gives things away, but they don’t come easy. You just want her to know she can trust you too. It’s gratifying when she shows that she does, when she tells you about Aine. Her voice wavers when she does it, and you realise, when she talks about how scared she was, that it’s a privilege of sorts - to be privy to the softer side of her, to her vulnerability. Something real and human. You wonder how many people in her life get to see that. You want to keep seeing it.

And you’re lucky enough that you do. Weeks pass, slow and steady, and more and more of your meetings end up with your laptops and notes strewn haphazardly across Shona’s coffee table, sitting untouched as you talk about anything and everything else instead. The work still gets done, but once you’re both a few glasses deep into some excellent wine and the world becomes a little warmer and comfortably fuzzier, she leans back against the couch with your shoulders brushing and you converse about other things. Shona’s brogue comes through stronger when she’s tipsy and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy listening to it. She tells you about her mum, how she worries about her living alone, four hours away by train, and how she pretends to be coping perfectly fine with the death of her husband but Shona knows she’s putting up a front. She talks about how Aine worries her too, for different reasons. One time she’s had a particularly strong nip of whiskey when you're rushing some emails at one in the morning, she ends up lying on the floor beside you staring at the ceiling and confessing that she’s not actually sure if she and Vish are going to work out because she can’t imagine ten years down the road with him without feeling fucking terrified.

You always just listen, because you’re pretty sure it’s not advice she’s looking for, just someone who’ll hear her out without demanding that she help them fix their problems or figure things out. If the tired smiles she gives you at the end of every meeting are any indication, you’re right, and she’s grateful for it.

You tell her secrets too - sometimes things you’ve never admitted to anybody else. Shona’s always curious and patient, never judgmental. Her silence is comforting. You always feel heard, and you find yourself glad that you said yes to setting the event up with her. It’s been good for you for so many reasons beyond the vocational sphere. You don’t just have a colleague and a partner. You have a best friend.

Months of work go into setting up the event - publicising it, making sure the venue is booked and prepared and invitations are sent out on time, and you go through the minute-to-minute of the evening with a fine-tooth comb making sure you haven’t missed anything out. You’re still up at midnight the night before confirming all the last-minute things and fighting one or two small fires that have cropped up, as is wont to happen with all events ever. You get a text from Shona, probably also hunched over her laptop in her bedroom - _shit scared that tomorrow’s gonna suck._

 _It’s not,_ you start to type in response, but her second text comes through before you can hit send. _So glad you’re doing this with me, I couldn’t have managed it without you :)_

You find yourself fighting the smile that threatens to spread wide across your face, the warmth a golden weight in your chest. _Me too,_ you want to say. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing getting the event off the ground, but you can’t wait for the launch tomorrow - you can’t wait to see your efforts bearing fruit, and you want to see the look on Shona’s face when this dream of hers unfolds before her eyes for real. Her happiness is also yours. Whatever happens, the event will be a success, you firmly decide. No matter what eleventh-hour emergencies and crises occur. You’ll fix them and make it happen. It’s what you’ve both been working towards, and you can’t envision anything less.

Despite the little technical hiccups that come with setting up in the afternoon, and one little issue with the catering that ends up taking thirty precious minutes out of your carefully scheduled buffer time, the event itself goes perfectly fine. Front of house opens and guests are received without issue, food and champagne gets served without a hitch - everything is good. You take your seat beside the rostrum when Shona goes to give the opening speech. She looks amazing; you expected nothing less. She launches into the speech and you think - _we did it, I’m so proud of us, I’m so proud of you, we really fucking did it._

Then she says _I say partner, but I should probably say fiance,_ and you feel your heart stop right there, skipping a beat, the whole world suddenly going cold.

Is that the moment? You don’t think it is - you don’t think you _fall_ for Shona in the moment she announces that she’s engaged. In that breathless second your mind races over the past few months you’ve spent together and it can’t pinpoint when and where you crossed that line without realising it. You think _oh,_ but the revelation isn’t an explosive one, doesn’t knock you off your feet, and you hear a little voice in your head that simply says _you’re in love with Shona; of course you are, haven’t you been for months?_ and _you idiot, you idiot, what did you do?_ and loudest of all, roaring in your ears, freezing you to the spot - _it’s over._

Shona’s already moved on halfway into her speech, charming the crowd, but you can’t tear your eyes from her. You can feel a chasm beginning to crack open in your heart, making it hard to breathe. You don’t know when this began, and maybe you never will, but you know how it has to end.

When you find Shona after, at the quiet little drinks corner set up specifically for staff, it’s not that you’ve planned to kiss her. You’re not sure what you plan, actually. You just… hear her voice, her words, directed at you; her happy beam, her relief at the worst of it being over. She looks as beautiful as she did at the bar, that very first day when the event was still just the seed of an idea in her mind, and it brings back that flood of memory. You’re where you stand right now because you said yes to setting up the event, and without knowing it, _yes_ to so much more.

You love her; it settles over your heart like a tattoo, like it’s carving itself into your bones, becoming a part of your core. You love her and she can’t love you back and it hurts and you think you will carry that hurt forever, and you wouldn’t be hurting if you hadn’t said that yes, but gun to your head you’d never make a different choice. You wouldn’t give up everything you’ve shared with her. But you’re not strong the way Shona is, carrying responsibility on her shoulders and bearing the weight with grace. You don’t think you could survive pretending that nothing has changed when everything has.

 _You are so great,_ you say, and you mean it with all your heart. When you kiss her it’s not a question or a request; it’s not a plea for her to kiss you back. When you kiss her, it’s a goodbye. You kiss her like you already miss her, already braced for her to push you away, to tell you to fuck off. A clean break, a final ending. She’ll tell you to leave and never come back, and you won’t.

And then a miracle happens, a gift from the heavens -

She doesn’t.

Shona gives things away. In her words, in her expressions, her gestures and body language, and even in her silence. You’ve shared silences before, but never like this. When you pull back and wait for her response, your gaze meets hers and you see shock and surprise. You see wavering confusion, and then, heart in your throat, lip between your teeth, you see it slip into achingly familiar determination. A risk assessed, a decision made.

She leans in and kisses you back.

It is the best moment of your life.

She speaks first right after your second kiss, because you both know she’s always been the smarter one, the more level-headed one, the one who looks further into the future and tries to shape it with her own hands. “We should get back out there,” she says, and it’s a whip lash, a slap to the face, and all you hear, for a second, is _I made a mistake. That was a goodbye after all._

Only she must see it on your face - and maybe you’ve learned how to give things away too, or maybe she’s just learned you like she’s learned herself, reading you easy as breathing. She presses her forehead against yours; your eyes are closed, but you can practically _hear_ her smile, bright and genuine and beautiful. “I need to settle some things,” she murmurs. “I need to… get some things worked out so this can happen.” She reaches for your hand, holds it tight, her pulse steady against your own. “Wait for me, okay? Promise me you’ll wait for me. Charlotte.”

You think about months ago, in Shona’s living room, listening to her paint you a vision of a thriving partnership, doing the kind of good that ripples far into the future, a year from now, or ten, or fifty. A dream, bigger than yourself. You look down that road, and for the first time in a long time, it’s crystal clear. She knows what she wants, and you do too. When you open your eyes you see the green of hers, the smile on her face that mirrors yours. You squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back. “I promise,” you reply. Binding, like the signature at the end of a contract, something to last a lifetime. You don’t know when this began, and you don’t think you ever will. But that’s okay, because now you know for damn sure how you’re going to have it end.


End file.
